Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single biographical work in the whole of literature," James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth18 September 1709
Samuel Johnson quotes about
If one party resolves to demand what the other resolves to refuse, the dispute can be determined only by arbitration; and between powers who have no common superior, there is no other arbitrator than the sword
Prudence keeps life safe, but it does not often make it happy.
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Disposition to derision and insult is awakened by the softness to foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mein; by gestures int
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.
This doctrine (of ruling passions) is in itself pernicious as well as false: its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral predestination, or overruling principle which cannot be resisted; he that admits it, is prepared to comply with ever
He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty
Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew a light at Calais
Its proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.
I have heard him assert, that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity